Woman charged with murder hours after she was reported missing
Ben Thompson
Featured Image Credit: Navarro County Office of Emergency Management
A teenage girl has been charged with murder just a few hours after she was reported missing.
Natalie Navarro, 17, was the subject of an AMBER alert when she vanished on on Thursday.
The teen, from Dallas, was later charged with murdering 21-year-old Arturo Pena, who was found shot dead inside a car in Garland, Texas.
Another suspect, Yordy Martinez, 21, is being sought in connection to the killing.
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Police had received reports on Thursday that Navarro has disappeared 'in suspicious circumstances' from an apartment complex in east Dallas.
The teen was last seen around 2.15pm that day and was believed to be in immediate or grave danger.
At the time of her AMBER alert, arrest warrants had been issued for both Navarro and Martinez.
Martinez is feared to have fled across the US-Mexico border to evade authorities and remains at large.
According to police, the 21-year-old has previous criminal charges including a felony indictment for allegedly shooting a gun into a Garland home last November.
Pena was found dead inside his car at 10am on 29 August, after being reported missing two days previously.
Police soon closed in on Martinez and Navarro as people of interest and issued arrest warrants. Details on how the pair were developed as suspects in Pena's death have not yet been released.
Although the circumstances around why an AMBER alert was issued for Navarro haven't been disclosed, police said that circumstances met the criteria for an alert.
The alert was discontinued at 3.30am the next day after Garland Police confirmed she was found in South Texas by law enforcement in Webb County.
Martinez, who was not found with her, had been named as a suspect in Navarro's disappearance.
Upon her discovery, she was arrested and taken into custody.
AMBER alerts are distributed through an alert system to make the public aware of abducted children. They were introduced after the abduction and murder of Amber Rene Hagermen in 1996.
Speaking of the ongoing investigation, Lt. Richard Maldonado of the Garland Police Department said: "There’s a lot of stuff going out, we’ve collected a lot of evidence, so we’re trying to process everything right now."
He said that investigators have yet to determine a motive for the murder of Pena.
Martinez is considered armed and dangerous, and anyone with information regarding his whereabouts is asked to contact the Garland Police Department at 972-485-4840. Tips may also be submitted anonymously to Garland Crime Stoppers at 972-272-8477 (TIPS) or garlandcrimestoppers.org.